Sadie giggled again, then guffawed loudly. She caught her breath and gasped, “I couldn’t agree more. Nothing funny here. However, I can’t seem to stop laughing!”
The doctor stepped closer to Sadie, his manner now intent. Interested, even.
As the woman laughed, he bent down to examine her face through the clear plastic face shield in his suit.
“Please open your eyes very wide for me,” he instructed, peering closely at her.
Sadie did as he asked, opening her eyes wide as she laughed and laughed, clutching her stomach.
“I can’t stop laughing,” she gasped.
“Fascinating,” the doctor said, resuming his standing position. “Sadie, I’d like for you to step out to the exit, where one of my men will escort you to a different area.”
Sadie stood with difficulty, still laughing uncontrollably and clutching at her own heaving sides, but the other woman stopped her from moving toward the exit with a hand upon her shoulder. “Just a moment. Doctor, where will they be taking her?”
Even in the bulky suit, Jenny could see the man shrug his shoulders, “This woman needs to be separated from the rest of the group. Her behavior is obviously aberrant, which could signal infection. Her uncontrollable laughter is a sure sign of neurological instability. This could mean that the bacteria is able to affect its host neurologically, and we will need to run a battery of tests if that is proven to be the case.”
The woman removed her hand from Sadie’s shoulder, her face a mask of fear and anxiety, and Sadie stumbled toward the exit, her uncontrollable guffaws echoing off the glittering walls of the cavern.
The woman watched her go, once again wringing her hands.
When Sadie stepped out of the cavern, still laughing, supported almost entirely by the two other men in quarantine suits, the woman stepped closer to the doctor.
“That’s my baby sister,” she said. “I want to know what you’re going to do to help her. And, I want to know what you’re going to do about the lack of oxygen down here.”
The doctor took a step back from the woman, “Dear lady, at the present time there is nothing that I can do to remedy either situation. I’m simply here to determine infection and, if possible, symptoms that signify infection. Nothing more.”
The woman looked as if the doctor had just delivered a hard punch to her midsection. She gaped at him for a silent second before once again finding her voice.
“Nothing more? You’re not here to help?”
“Sadly, no,” the doctor said, then turned to walk away.
Jenny felt anger begin to roil within her stomach as she watched the woman sink back into her chair, looking shocked, and more than a little afraid. At that moment, it was apparent to Jenny that the worst was yet to come.
If the doctor’s statement was to be believed, and she did believe him, then no efforts would be made to prolong their lives. The quarantine was not a quarantine at all, but a death watch. The doctor and his men were simply there to run some tests, observe the infected, and watch them until they expired. Or didn’t.
If it was not the doctor’s job to try to save them, perhaps that duty fell to the specialist who was en route, but, based on what measure of assistance the CDC had provided so far, Jenny held out little hope that this was going to be the case.
In the mean time, the doctor had little to worry about. He’d avoid infection because of his quarantine suit, and, also thanks to the suit, he wouldn’t have to worry about the lack of oxygen in the mines either. He was safe, no matter what happened to those who were exposed and vulnerable.
Jenny snorted as she watched the doctor amble away. Something had to be done and soon. This situation was looking dire, and they could not just let it progress. If the doctor and the CDC were not there to help, then they needed some outside assistance. But without cell service, with the quarantine in effect, how would she contact anyone on the surface to get this assistance?
Across the cavern, a young woman stood up and began screaming uncontrollably. Jenny jumped at the sound. Just like with the boy, the woman was screaming for all she was worth, her neck muscles straining, her mouth wide open, her voice at full volume. The young woman had her head tipped up to the ceiling, screaming wildly, as if she were a dog howling in misery, crying out helplessly in despair and anguish so deep that it could not be contained any longer within her body and had to be let out in the form of an unending scream.
The doctor turned from his course toward the exit and moved closer to the young woman, taking her by the arm when he got to her side and then dragging her toward the exit as she screamed and screamed.
At the sound of the woman’s screaming, gooseflesh again prickled on the tender flesh of Jenny’s arms and she half rose out of her seat, but Stone’s hand on her arm stopped the motion before it could be completed. He shook his head at her, silently cautioning her to do nothing. And, in that moment, Jenny realized that there was truly nothing she could do for the woman. She had no treatment against the bacteria. She could do nothing to salve the woman’s misery or her pain.
Jenny slowly settled back into her chair, the bitter taste of helplessness settling in at the back of her throat. She badly wanted to ease the woman’s suffering. Placing her hand over Stone’s where it rested upon her arm, Jenny took what comfort she could in the warmth of this touch, even as the woman’s pathetic screams echoed harshly inside the cavern.
Knowing that the doctor would do nothing at all to ease the woman’s suffering was almost more than Jenny could bear. The thought fanned her righteous anger, urging her silently to do something.
Several people from the woman’s table protested as the young lady was rudely manhandled by the doctor, but the man pushed their clinging hands away and motioned for the security guards.
The two remaining armed guards, Stan and John, approached quickly at the doctor’s summons and the people backed down immediately, obviously afraid that they might become another murder victim if they should happen to protest too much. It was this fear that kept the people in check, allowing the doctor to hustle the girl over to the exit, where he turned her over to his two companions. She was still screaming as they led her out of the cavern.
As the young woman was being led off down the tunnels, her shrieks still audible as she grew farther away, the man in one of the chairs next to Jenny’s table began to cough violently.
The doctor made his way over to the man’s side, yet he did nothing to help as the man wheezed and gasped for breath. He simply watched, as if the man was an interesting specimen that had been positioned under a microscope for the sole purpose of being studied.
“Damn it, man, do something,” Stone said, shooting to his feet, his fists balled tight with ineffectual anger.
“As I said, there is nothing that I can do for him,” the doctor said, seemingly unperturbed that a man was possibly dying right before his eyes.
Stone stormed over to the table, ignoring the attention of the guards, and wrenched the inhaler from his pocket. “We’ve stopped other coughing attacks with an inhaler, but this one is empty.”
“I don’t have an inhaler,” the doctor told him.
Jenny felt a sudden, extreme urge to kick the man. How could he remain so dispassionate? Where was his human kindness? Why did the suffering of these people do nothing to stimulate a sympathetic response? Surely, in his calling to become a doctor, he had, at one time, once felt the urge to help the sick and suffering? It took all of Jenny’s willpower to remain in her chair. To do nothing, for there was nothing that she could do.
The man’s coughing turned to wheezing and he slumped back in his chair. The doctor reached out dispassionately to lift one of the man’s lids and look into his eye, then he muttered something to himself that Jenny couldn’t quite make out, although it sounded like he said “very interesting”.
Stone turned to the other visitors.
“Does anyone have a rescue inhaler?”
There was a pregnant pause. No one vol
unteered an inhaler.
“Damn it! He’s dying!” Stone shouted.
The other remaining visitors all stared at him like frightened sheep. There must not be another inhaler amongst the lot of them.
Jenny could stand it no longer. She leapt from her chair and moved to Stone’s side. The man in the chair was barely breathing now. His stocky body was slowly going limp, but the lines of anguish on his face expressed his silent agony.
Jenny’s heart squeezed in empathy. She knew how he felt.
“Try it anyway, Stone. There might be a tiny bit left in the inhaler. Even a little might help,” she said, shouldering in front of the doctor before gently reaching out to draw back the man’s head as it lolled on his shoulders.
Stone shook the inhaler vigorously, then cursed.
“It feels totally empty,” he said.
He put the inhaler to the man’s lips and depressed it. Jenny heard a hollow hiss, then a wet sputter, much like the sound a can of Ready Whip makes just as the last of the cream is ejected.
“There was a little. He got just a little. I just hope it was enough,” Jenny said, her voice seeming to be overly loud in the hush of the cavern as all waited to see if the man had drawn his last breath.
A tense second passed. Then another. Jenny held the man’s head in her hands, willing him silently to breathe.
When there seemed to be no reaction, she used one hand to pat the man’s cheek gently.
“Breathe,” she urged quietly. “Breathe it in! Try!”
The man’s eyelids fluttered and she thought that she heard him wheeze in a slight breath.
Jenny stared down at him intently, heart pounding, waiting to see if he was able to draw in another breath. Her heart broke for the man as he struggled. She knew well the pain and fear that accompanied the feeling of not being able to draw in life-giving oxygen. It wasn’t a sensation that she wouldn’t wish upon anyone.
The doctor lifted the man’s lid again, and Jenny had to resist the urge to slap the man’s hands away. His clinical detachment in the face of the man’s pain disgusted her. But she did nothing to stop the doctor, keeping her attention focused on the man’s struggle to breathe instead. If she took any action against the doctor, she was certain that she might soon join those who had been escorted from the room. And Stone would not allow that to happen while he still lived. Rather than put them both in danger, Jenny tamped down her animosity toward the useless doctor.
“Breathe,” she quietly urged the man again, still supporting his head in her hands, keeping his neck straight to give any air moving down his trachea easier access to his straining lungs.
“Interesting,” the doctor muttered, this time completely audible, still staring at the man’s eye.
Jenny was close enough that she saw what the doctor found so fascinating. The man’s pupil had been shrunken and tiny a moment before, but now it dilated back to normal size as they watched.
Based on what had happened with both her and Stone, Jenny took this as a good sign. The inhaler had worked. It had affected the bacteria somehow. But, this was the absolute last time it would. There was no doubt that the small canister was out of medication now. The empty hiss of air after the last of the medication had been expressed had proven that.
“Can you not use the radio to request more inhalers be brought down?” Jenny asked the doctor.
“Yes, I can. But, I’m afraid that the CDC has had the lift brought to the surface, and it will not be lowered again until the specialist arrives. The inhalers won’t be brought down until then.”
“But they’re just inhalers. Surely the CDC could send them down, and then raise the lift again. It could save lives,” she urged.
The doctor shrugged again, unconcerned. “I’ve been notified that, under no circumstances, will they send the lift down before the specialist arrives. I don’t doubt their resolve. Mr. Malnon’s directions were explicit. And he’s in charge. He wants no possibility of contamination on the surface.”
Jenny felt her heart shudder. It was hopeless then. With no more Albuterol to stop the uncontrollable coughing fits that so many had experienced in the last two hours, when the specialist finally arrived all those remaining, presumably infected, visitors down in the mines could be dead.
The doctor was looking at her now. “I understand that you, and then those at your table, were some of the first to experience this coughing attack?”
Jenny nodded. There was no point in lying to the man. Every person in the room could attest to what had happened earlier.
“Then, I’d like to start the blood tests with you and your group,” the man said, his tone implying that she really had no choice in the matter.
Jenny looked at Stone’s tense face. His expression said otherwise. His expression said that she did have a choice. She knew that if she objected to giving a sample of her blood, Stone would back her up and make sure she wasn’t forced.
She glanced over to the two armed security guards, noticing the way that Stan was eyeing Stone, as if the man was just waiting for the chance to take Stone out.
Jenny shuddered at the thought. “Fine,” she told the doctor.
Chapter Twelve
Jenny sat and watched as the doctor took large blood samples from all of the people at the table next to theirs. She’d already taken her turn, as had Stone and his friends.
She’d watched with interest as the samples from the people at their table were quickly handed off to one of the other men in the quarantine suits. If the lift wasn’t in operation, then the doctor must have a portable lab set up down in the one of the caverns for testing the samples – otherwise, what need was there for the rush? This made her wonder how he’d be transmitting his results. Surely such complicated data could not be reported by radio?
“I need to talk to one of the staff,” Jenny muttered to Stone, watching the doctor carefully to make sure the man didn’t hear her.
Stone raised an eyebrow in question, but nodded silently. A moment later, he rose from his seat and approached one of the young women who had been serving drinks earlier.
Stone motioned for Jenny to follow, and she felt every eye in the cavern focus on her as she rose from the table and moved to his side.
“My fiancé is a little light-headed. I think it might be from giving blood – it was a rather large sample that they took. Do you have any orange juice that she could drink?” Stone asked politely.
The server nodded. “It’s in the back there. I’ll get it.”
“Can I come with you?” Jenny asked, trying to adjust her voice to carry a plaintive note. “Seeing the doctor stick needles into everyone’s arms is making me rather nauseated.”
The server looked toward John, as if waiting for permission. She didn’t have to wait to catch his eye, since both guards were paying very close attention to Stone and already watching their interaction with the server with keen interest.
John nodded and shrugged, as if to say ‘why not’, and the server nodded back in understanding.
“Follow me,” the server said, and Jenny gave Stone a weak smile and headed off after the girl as she disappeared behind the tarp that was hung at the north side of the dining cavern, located well behind the tables where the remains of the catered dinner sat, cooled, congealed and forgotten in the chaos of the ensuing events.
Unlike the rest of the areas hidden behind tarps, the area behind this tarp was well lit, and Jenny could see that this small section of the cavern functioned as the kitchen and food prep section of the museum. The server led her to a huge industrial-sized stainless steel refrigerator that was so large it couldn’t possible have fit inside the lift. It must have been brought down into the museum on the lift in pieces and then reassembled in the kitchen area. The girl opened the door on the massive appliance, revealing rows and rows of refrigerated beverages, stainless steel bowls brimming with apples, large blocks of exotic cheeses, and at least twenty bottles of chilled Cupcake Moscato D’Asti wine, which just happened to be
Jenny’s personal favorite.
“We’ve got Florida’s Natural and Tropicana. Which kind would you like?”
For a moment, Jenny looked at the wine and contemplated asking for it instead. The alcohol in the beverage might take the edge off the anxiety that stabbed at her mind with every breath she took, but it would also dull her senses, slow her reactions and could even possibly react with the medication that had been in the inhaler.
“Florida’s Natural, please,” Jenny answered reluctantly.
The girl grabbed a single-serving bottle of the juice from the fridge and handed it to Jenny. She closed the fridge and turned to go back out into the cavern, but Jenny stopped her with a gentle hand on her elbow.
“Wait, I need to ask you a few questions,” she said, her voice pitched low so that it would be difficult for anyone beyond the tarp to hear.
The girl stepped back, her face a mask of apprehension, “I don’t know anything, and Stan said that the servers were not supposed to talk to the visitors about anything other than food.”
Jenny nodded, “I understand, but I still need your help. You might know more than you think. For instance, does the museum have a phone line? Or a wireless network? Or even a wired network?”
The girl glanced back towards the tarp that hung over the entrance to the kitchen area, looking scared. “If Stan hears us, I don’t know what he’ll do. He’s been wound tight as a spring ever since they found out that the bacteria’s environment had been broken. He’s not acting like himself now. He’s acting really, really weird, like his head isn’t on straight or something. He could do anything if he hears me talking to you about this.”
Jenny knew that the girl must be thinking about the man who had been murdered, shot in the back by Harry as he’d tried to flee. Stan did seem on edge. Jenny could not assure the girl that he wouldn’t try to do the same to them if he found them talking. There were no comforting words that she could offer, so she opted for the truth.
Jenny nodded in agreement of the server’s fears, keeping her face calm and her voice quiet. “That may be true, but we still need your help. Surely you heard the doctor? People are already suffering from oxygen deprivation, and he’s not going to do anything about it. And, apparently, neither is the CDC. If we don’t contact someone else to help us, what do you think is going to happen? I think there’s a good chance that they don’t really care if we all die. In fact, that would solve a lot of problems for them. They could clean up the mess, blame it on some bizarre mining accident, and nothing more would ever be said.”
Deep Down (Sam Stone Book 1) Page 7
